


Edge of Sixteen

by EAU1636



Category: Endeavour (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a sort of happy ending, Endeavour Morse Needs a Hug, Family, Gen, Suicidal Thoughts, teenage Morse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-06
Updated: 2020-04-06
Packaged: 2021-03-01 21:41:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23504023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EAU1636/pseuds/EAU1636
Summary: Teenage Endeavour. Warning for suicidal thoughts, not graphic or specific, but mentioned.
Relationships: Endeavour Morse & Gwen Morse, Endeavour Morse & Joyce Morse, endeavour Morse & Cyril Morse
Comments: 20
Kudos: 33





	Edge of Sixteen

**Author's Note:**

> "He was no more than a baby then  
> Well he seemed broken-hearted  
> Something within him"  
> -Edge of Seventeen by Stevie Nicks
> 
> Took a break from my WIP to write this very short look at baby (teenage) Morse. Wrote it in a day, feel free to Brit pick or point out mistakes, I don't have anyone to do that for me. 
> 
> I want to be crystal clear here that suicide is never the answer, never romantic, never cathartic. It takes away all the beauty that lies ahead of you and leaves the people behind in ruins. If you're ever even considering harming yourself, please reach out to someone. You matter, people care, and things will get better. Okay, stepping off my soap box...

“Endeavour!” he hears the shrill voice call from downstairs, “I’ve enough to do without having to remind you to get to school on time. If you’re going to eat you’d better get your head out of the clouds and get down here!”

Sunlight dances through the window upon tousled golden strawberry curls falling over a brow furrowed in concentration. Startlingly blue eyes are slightly squinted in deep thought, one hand props up a cleft chin and the other pulls absentmindedly at an earlobe. A sensitive face, pale as cream and dotted with tawny freckles, almost feminine in its stark beauty. Sprawled across his bed, he looks up from his book and over at the clock on the nightstand. He’s timed it right, just a few more minutes and then he’ll rush out the door, no time for breakfast. His stomach grumbles but the gnawing hunger until lunch is worth it. He’s grown thinner in the past six months, not only because he’s gotten taller, but because meals are the most unbearable part of life here. Better to go hungry than to endure the strained silences, withering looks, and endless petty criticisms. Gwen seems to feast on his discomfort, holding every morsel of food she prepares for him over his head like a delinquent tab he’ll never be able to pay off.

Once, back before all this, he’d looked forward to the comfort of meal times. His mother wasn’t an outstanding cook and they didn’t have much, but she still managed to make meals feel special. They’d sit together in companionable silence most mornings, because she liked to start the day with a quiet mind, open to possibilities. But he’d look up to see her kind eyes smiling at him over the chipped wooden table, the love in them unmistakable and unconditional. Over dinner she’d be eager to hear all about his day and listened to his interests and dreams and observations with the sort of rapt attention only adoration can bestow. Those three years, just the two of them, had been the best of his life. He’d taken it for granted, all that time, that she would always be there, that he would always be loved. Now he knew better. He’s gotten so used to skipping meals that he almost doesn’t notice now. The hunger feels fitting, the ache of it echoing the deeper ache inside him, the longing that never leaves.

Carefully marking the page where he left off, he closes the book and stands to look in the mirror. He hates his lanky limbs and stilted shyness. He wishes for the millionth time that he were more like the other boys at school. Tougher, more raucous and self assured. The sort of young man his father might be proud of. The sort that would easily fit in. He runs his hand quickly through his curls, only managing to make them look more disheveled, and attempts to smooth down his shirt before giving up and grabbing his school bag. He runs down the stairs and peeks his head into the kitchen where little Joycie’s sitting alone for the moment. He gives her a quick smile and heads out the door, grateful for the small mercy of avoiding any interaction with Gwen.

* * *

Dinner isn’t as easily escaped, as they’ve been invited to Gwen’s sister, Geraldine’s house. Tonight of all nights he’d hoped to be able to hide in his room and take refuge in reading. He rides silently in the car with Gwen and his father and Joycie. A family and an unwelcome interloper. Some nights aren’t too bad, when his father has had good luck at the track, when he hasn’t started drinking yet. Some small part of him had hoped his father might remember the significance of the date, but of course that had been foolish. His father never gave much thought to him one way or the other. Cyril is certainly in a foul mood tonight. Geraldine and her husband Edgar are well off, their social circle is the cultured type that his father so disdains. The boy’s anxiety is mounting already. He hates parties and social situations with strangers. All that small talk. Never knowing what to say and somehow always landing on the wrong thing, the thing that makes him stand out like the misfit he is. He’s only met Geraldine once, when she and Edgar had come for Joycie’s birthday party. She seemed nice enough, more kindly towards him than Gwen certainly, but he still dreads the visit.

Dinner isn’t too bad, he mostly manages to avoid conversation by keeping his mouth full and his eyes down. He’s grateful that Joycie attracts most of the attention with her sweet and funny ways. She’s the best part of this new life. He’s always been the only child, first between constantly quarreling parents and then alone with his mother. He likes the idea of being a big brother, of looking out for her. He can’t imagine how awful things would be with his father and Gwen if Joycie weren’t there. Little as she is, she’s like a buffer between him and total loneliness. 

A month back, when things had been really bad, when he’d thought of that last resort, the only way out of this emptiness he’d found himself drowning in, the thought of her had been one of the things that held him back. The idea still hasn’t left his mind entirely, there’s nothing else here for him, no love, no light, only darkness spreading out ahead of him like an ocean. It could be tonight, he thinks, he could leave this world on the same day he’d entered it.

Around the dinner table, conversation turns to sport, and Edgar asks Endeavour what he likes best.  _ None of them  _ is the truthful answer, but Endeavour knows it’s the wrong one. It isn’t that he’s unathletic exactly, he’s fast and quick to see the best strategic move during games, but he’s so self conscious that he can’t enjoy himself. And anyway, he isn’t much interested. But he’s learned that admitting this is tantamount to saying he’s from another planet, so he shrugs and mumbles that he plays a bit of this and that. 

“Hard to be good at sport, or make friends for that matter, when your nose is always stuck up in the air or down in a book,” Gwen says with scorn, “Our Endeavour holds himself above such things.” 

The way she says  _ our Endeavour _ makes him ball his hands into fists beneath the table. As though he belonged to them, as though he were anything but an unwanted imposition in their lives. When he’d first come he’d thought things might be different with Gwen. He was so used to his mother’s tenderness and affection that the loss of it opened up a chasm of need within him. He hoped at first that Gwen might come to love him, or at least like him. She’d never be his mother, he knew that of course, but he thought she might come to see him as a part of the family, if not a son. But from the moment he’d arrived she’d only seen a catalog of faults in him. Nothing he did, nothing about him, was right. He would never be a part of this family, might never feel a part of anything again. Eventually he’d stopped trying, and now he found a sort of pleasure in the pastimes that he knew she would find most distasteful. The heavy books he lugged home from the library were half for his enjoyment and half because he knew they’d draw her ire. He was smarter than her, he thought, and it bothered her. His intelligence had become a kind of solace, a small way he could feel superior, when in all else he felt belittled to nothingness.

* * *

After dinner the adults play cards. Joycie has fallen asleep on the sofa and Endeavour sits beside her, wishing they could leave, that he could be home alone in his room, back with his books and his solitude. 

Geraldine comes over to him during a lull in the game. “Pretty boring for you, sitting here while we old folk play our silly games.”

He shrugs and gives a nervous smile. 

“Do you like music?” She asks, “We’ve lots of records. I could put something on for you.”

She is kind, and he’s grateful, but so unused to this sort of thoughtfulness that he doesn’t know how to respond. 

“Why don’t you go choose something to play. The records are over there in the corner. I’d like to hear something, it’ll liven things up a bit.”

She heads back to the game and he walks to the record player. He’s always loved music. His mother had often sung to him as a child and sometimes they’d sung hymns together, she’d always said he had the loveliest voice she’d ever heard. It had been a long time now, since he’d sung. The sort of music Gwen and his father played, on the rare occasion they played any, had a sort of packaged artificiality to it that made the melodies never ring quite true. He flips through the records, they have quite a collection. Then his fingers stop on an album with an arresting woman on the cover, he feels almost as if her sad eyes are looking right through him. Rosalind Calloway, an opera singer. He’s never listened to opera, but guesses it’s the sort of thing Gwen will loathe, so he chooses it. 

He gently puts the needle down and music begins to fill the room. The woman’s voice is like nothing he’s ever heard before. He sits on the couch, motionless, transfixed by the soaring heights and sorrowful depths of what he hears. He doesn’t understand a single word but he knows exactly what she’s saying, he feels it deep within him, the emotions so raw and true that tears spring to his eyes. Nothing is hidden here, nothing withheld, all the beauty and misery of life distilled down to the rise and fall of a single voice. Something in him awakens, a glimmer of hope he thought had been forever distinguished. There is beauty left in the world and for a moment he feels a part of something larger than himself, something that no one can take from him, something he can carry within himself like a torch against the darkness. 

After a time the music ends, but he’s still rooted to the spot, not wanting to break the spell. The adults finish their game and Geraldine again approaches him. He quickly reaches up to wipe the tears from his cheek, but not before she can see he’s been crying. 

“Opera music always makes me cry too,” she says softly, “Such a cliché but it’s true. There’s something magical about it I always think. It has the power to transport us somewhere else.”

He nods, a lump in his throat, so grateful that someone understands. 

Gwen begins her goodbyes and his father carries a still sleeping Joycie to the car. Endeavour is just putting on his coat when Geraldine comes up beside him, her hand outstretched, holding the record out to him. 

He swallows, unsure of what to do. He’s never wanted anything so much in his life, but how can he take such a gift from someone he barely knows? Surely she just pities him. 

He puts his hand up. “Oh, I couldn’t,” he says haltingly.

“Please,” she says with a warm smile, “It belongs with someone who will treasure it. I’m afraid I don’t listen to it much these days. Edgar doesn’t care for opera, too melodramatic he always says.”

She puts the record into his hand. “Goodnight, Endeavour. I’m so glad you came tonight, it was a pleasure.”

He can’t speak for fear he’ll cry again, so he just nods his head and heads out to the car, holding the record tight to his chest. On the ride home he makes plans. He'll get a job, something he can do after school and on weekends. He’ll save up and get his own record player, and then more of his own records. He thinks of all the operas he’s yet to listen to, waiting out there for him. He finds, to his surprise, that the future once again holds something to look forward to, and a secret smile crosses his face, dimpling his cheek. 

* * *

That night in bed he gingerly places the record on his nightstand, leaning it up against the clock so that the beautiful woman looks right at him. 

Life still had surprises. He’d been given a birthday gift after all.  _ Music. Hope.  _ He curls up and falls asleep, all of sixteen, all of life, ahead of him. 

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> I know that the Endeavour pilot has him saying that his mother died when he was twelve, but I went with the Inspector Morse version here where he says his parents divorced at twelve and his mother died when he was fifteen.


End file.
